


there's a question ages old

by insteadofjust_invisible



Category: SKAM (Spain)
Genre: Friendship, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-01
Updated: 2020-09-01
Packaged: 2021-03-07 00:48:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,200
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26228182
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/insteadofjust_invisible/pseuds/insteadofjust_invisible
Summary: "Amira and Cris met when they were six years old, on the first day of first grade. Amira had her hair up in a tight ponytail and Cris was sporting the space buns she was still fond of as a teenager. Their teacher sat them together simply because they had come in one after the other and Cris immediately introduced herself with a toothless grin."or Cris and Amira's friendship through the years
Relationships: Amira Naybet & Cristina "Cris" Soto Peña
Comments: 3
Kudos: 33





	there's a question ages old

**Author's Note:**

> Did I originally plan to publish this during Amira appreciation week? Yes. I obviously didn't, but here it is, just in time for her season <3
> 
> A few warnings, I guess? I don't know how the Spanish education system works, so if anything school related is not quite right, I apologize. I also didn't really do the math for their ages and the timing of the events in the show, so they are based on memory and rough estimations only. Hopefully it matches? Ok, that's it, I hope you enjoy!
> 
> Oh, title is from "Spirit Cold" by Tall Heights (which is the song playing at the beginning of the iftar clip in s2, where this story ends)

Amira and Cris met when they were six years old, on the first day of first grade. Amira had her hair up in a tight ponytail and Cris was sporting the space buns she was still fond of as a teenager. Their teacher sat them together simply because they had come in one after the other and Cris immediately introduced herself with a toothless grin. Amira replied shyly, with a small wave, and that was probably the last time she was shy about anything. All thanks to Cris, really, with whom you couldn’t be shy if you wanted to keep up. She remained quiet though, but for that Cris also made up: she was a chatterbox. They fit together like that, seemingly opposites but the same in the things that mattered. Cris was all long limbs and fair skin, blonde hair and blue eyes, whereas Amira was dark skin, brown hair and brown eyes. Cris was a chatterbox, not an ounce of shyness in her bones, she often spoke without thinking things through. On the other hand, Amira was quiet, more introverted, she would often get too much into her own head. They both valued friendship though, and mutual respect, loyalty, trust.

The next year, they were put in the same class again. The girls were over the moon about it, their mothers, not so much. Not that there was much to be done about it. The girls sat together in class, played together during recess, and often went over to each others’ house after school - they were delighted to learn they were neighbors. They became inseparable. Year after year, their friendship grew stronger and stronger, despite the whispers and the buzz surrounding them -  _ but Cris is so Spanish, how can she be friends with her? I heard she is Muslim, you know. Yeah, but she is not Muslim Muslim, if you get what I mean _ . Amiris was the realest thing in the world, after all.

When they were eight, Cris saw Amira praying for the first time after spending a weekend at her house when her parents had to go on a last minute trip to Zaorejas because her grandfather had fallen from the stairs while changing a lightbulb. She found it all incredible - the wudu and the proper clothes and the prayer mat and the movements and the words in Arabic and Amira’s cat even had her own prayer mat! Her parents didn’t find it all that incredible when she told them about it though, her father’s expression turning into a frown and her mother murmuring words she couldn’t quite understand under her breath. That was a scene that would be repeated for years and years to come.

When they were nine, they asked for matching clothes so they could twin. They both got it for their birthdays (in Cris’ case, she annoyed her parents so much she earned her gift a few months earlier) and off they were on the first day of school wearing the same outfit and the same hairstyle - a tight ponytail - and, coincidentally enough, missing the same tooth in their smiles. They both have the picture their mothers took of them that day, arm-in-arm with the brightest smile they could possibly sport, in a set of matching frames on their desks.

When they were ten, they were put in different classes for the first time since they had met. Cris decided the school was wrong and sat down next to Amira in her classroom, putting her name tent, pencil case and notebook in front of her with as much pride and stubbornness as a 10-year-old could muster and refused to move when the teacher called on her. She didn’t move from there the whole day, despite several attempts from the teacher and the principal to get her to go to the ‘right classroom.’ Her parents were called in and after what seemed to be hours in the principal’s office discussing her so called bad behavior, Cris’ mom gave up and asked if they couldn’t just move her to Amira’s class, would that be so bad? They moved her. When Amira told her mom about it, she laughed, saying she expected nothing else from Cris. Honestly, neither did Amira. The next year they were put in the same class again from the start, just how it was supposed to be and just how they preferred it, thank you very much.

When they were eleven, Amira broke her arm when she fell from her bike. They were at the park near their houses and Dani was supposedly watching over them, but he was really just playing on his DS with his friends nearby while they rode. When Amira fell, Cris cried more than she did, but she also ran straight to Dani, who carried Amira on his back to her house and sat with her and Cris while they waited for her mom to get home and take her to the hospital. The next day, he knocked on her door with her favorite cookies and blushing well wishes. That was probably the start of her crush on him, actually.

When they were twelve, Cris fought with her mom and ran away to Amira’s house for a whole weekend. Cris’ parents knew, of course. Amira’s parents had let them know as soon as the girl knocked on their door, face all red and talking a mile a minute. They argued for the girl to come back immediately but relented after Amira’s mom pleaded that it would do them both good to calm down a bit. For a while after that, the girls would hang out at Amira’s more often than at Cris’, and then they just started to hang out somewhere else altogether.

When they were thirteen, Cris kissed a boy for the first time and Amira only heard about it a week later. It was the middle of summer, she was in Marrocos and Cris was in Zaorejas. That was the first time she thought that maybe their friendship wasn’t going to last forever. Cris never heard a word of her worries - Amira smiled and laughed through the entire video call, asking for details and pictures, to which Cris happily obliged (no confusions that time either about whose pictures she was asking for). She and Alvaro, that was the guy’s name, dated for the three remaining weeks Cris stayed in Zaorejas before classes started. Not a single word was spoken of him once the summer was over.

When they were fourteen, they started going to botellons. Much to Cris’ surprise, who was undergoing her own crisis about the apparently uncertain future of their friendship, Amira got the hang of flirting quicker than she did, which she, very ashamedly, thought of as good sign - a sign that Amira did like partying, despite what her parents said. That Amira could like boys, despite what her parents said. That Amira did drink, despite what her parents said. That Amira was just like her, despite what her parents, and their teachers, and other people their age said. Later, she overcame these frankly shameful and outdated ideas - she came to understand that Amira liked partying regardless, that she liked boys regardless, that she could do and did all those things not despite of things, but regardless of them, sometimes even in spite of them, and when she decided not to drink in the end, what about it?

When they were fifteen, they had their first fight. Over a concert, of all things. A Shawn Mendes concert. This is how it happened: they both had gotten tickets far in advance with money they had been setting aside. The tickets were not the best, but they had bought it with their own money and their parents had agreed to let them go on their own, much to their delight (and Dani’s, who was going to have to be their chaperone otherwise). Then, Cris found out some of her cousins from Zaorejas were also going and had tickets to see the sound check too, including an extra one for Cris. It was decided Cris would go with her cousins early for the sound check and Amira’s parents would drop her off later on before the actual concert, but when she got there, Cris was nowhere to be seen - they had let them stay closer to the stage, nowhere near where their original tickets were at. Amira doesn’t like to admit it, but she cried and ended up going home, mad at Cris like never before. On her end, Cris felt guilty like never before and went home herself after the first song. She just couldn’t enjoy the concert like she should without Amira there. Their first fight lasted a whole two hours and seventeen minutes, after which Cris showed up at Amira’s doorstop with her favorite cookies and mumbled apologies. They spent the night devouring the cookies (as well as popcorn and ice cream and gummy bears), watching terrible reality TV, draped over each other and laughing like there was no tomorrow.

When they were fifteen going on sixteen, Amira decided to start wearing the hijab and became more observant of her religion. The day she talked it out with Cris was probably one of the most awkward conversations they had ever had. Amira stumbled through most of it and Cris, who never shut her mouth and always had a smartass remark on the tip of her tongue, that Cris stayed silent the whole time. It took a few tries too, maybe because Cris had always known her, knew she had always been Muslim, so why the change now? They got there though, little by little, to the point Cris would refute and badmouth everyone who even gave Amira a side eye when it came to her religion (and when it didn’t too). 

When they were sixteen still, they met Eva, Viri and Nora. That afternoon in Eva’s house, Amira thought there wasn’t much of a future to their little group, but she was gladly surprised otherwise. Viri was still tactless sometimes, but she meant well. Eva was still too easy going sometimes too, but she was getting better at standing her ground. Nora was finding herself again, not too tucked into her shell, not quite completely out there yet. Cris was still too reckless sometimes, mostly at parties, but she was finding out the middle ground between fun and responsibility. 

When they were seventeen, Cris came out to Amira in yet another extremely awkward conversation. At first, Amira had thought Cris was finally overgrowing her and their friendship, too enamored by parties and boys - older boys like Ruben - and trips to Mallorca and maybe her parents were finally getting to and through her with all their conservative bullshit, but then Cris had said she liked a girl so, so much, Amira couldn’t help but laugh. She gained a new friend in Joana then, the mysterious new girl at school who was oh so absolutely gone for her best friend, who loved art and drawing and literature and supported Amira in her photography and discussed the meaning of life with her.

When they were seventeen still, a few weeks after Cris had come out to her, she and all of their friends threw her an iftar party on the rooftop of Cris’ building. Amira cried. Cris laughed. Everyone else cheered - on the setting sun, on her, on their friendship.

“What?” she remembers Cris asking, and how she tried to make nothing of it, looking away from her friend and blinking back the tears that were trying to escape.

“What do you mean nothing? Come on, what’s going on? Stop pretending.”

Cris had pushed her with her shoulder, a smile on her lips that had been there since she had met Amira in front of her building and led her through the hundreds of steps up to the roof and an understanding gaze, so she gave in: “I’m so happy that I sat next to you on the first day of class. Do you remember it? Primary school.”

“Of course girl, how could I not if my mom still has a picture of us in that class. You with that tight ponytail,” Cris had joked, gesturing with her hands to show how tight Amira’s ponytail had been.

“What? And what about you with those ridiculous space buns that you still wear?” she had joked back, rolling her eyes and laughing along with Cris, who claimed her space buns were fantastic - they were, no one could pull them off like she did - and laid her head on Amira’s shoulder, causing her to take a deep breath in and force the tears back. Again. 

“A whole life together.” 

“And everything still to come.” Cris had pressed a kiss to Amira’s shoulder then, and that was she knew: that was a promise, as much as one could promise something of that sort. So she prayed and hoped for everything still to come, because through anything and everything, despite and in spite of what people thought or said, Amira and Cris would remain friends their entire life, cien por ciento seguro - Amiris es lo más real que hay.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! Come say hi to me on [my tumblr](https://aspeckof-stardust.tumblr.com/) :)


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